Leg Drains? (Read 6410 times)

My sister's cross country coach has them do something called "leg drains" after their runs. He has them lay on their backs with their legs against a wall, perpendicular to the ground, for about 5 minutes. Then he has them drink a whole bottle of water. He tells them that by doing this they're "draining" the lactic acid from their muscles.
The purpose is, supposedly, to prevent your legs from hurting on the next run.
Anybody ever heard of this? Does it sound like something that actually works? I have a feeling its more of a psychological thing, but what do you think?

"If you want to become the best runner you can be, start now. Don't spend the rest of your life wondering if you can do it."

I found it feels good after a Half marathon or Full marathon. It doesn't drain the lactic acid from the legs ... it just helps with the venous blood return from your legs. After a long race blood wants to pool in the legs. That gives that heavy, swollen feeling.
That's what I know about that ...

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

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I now do this regularly after a long run, as I read it in one of my latest purchases - MOST EXCELLENT BOOK "Chi Running".
As previously stated it drains away the 'bad' blood and then replaces with fresh blood when you stand up again.

"I've been following Eddy's improvement over the last two years on this site, and it's been pretty dang solid. Sure the weekly mileage has been up and down, but over the long haul he's getting out the door and has turned himself into quite a runner. He's only now just figuring out his potential. Consistency in running is measured in years, not weeks. And over the last couple of years, Eddy's made great strides" Jeff 14 Jan 2009

And there is not good evidence that lactic acid, per se, does anything bad at all.

Quite true. Lactic acid, or lactate, is a byproduct of the breakdown of glucose and glycogen via glycolysis. It builds up in high levels in your bloodstream during exercise as exertion increases, and can actually be used as an energy source, indirectly. The infamous "burn" comes from hydrogen ions, not lactate. When people talk about lactate threshold, or improving your lactate threshold, what is really meant by that is that you want to increase the running velocity at which lactate spills into your bloodstream faster than your body can utilize it.

On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.